In establishments such as cleaning stores whose business is cleaning, a large amount of foldable articles such as shirts must be folded. In view of this, apparatuses for folding numerous foldable articles have been considered.
For example, an existing example of an apparatus for folding shirts as foldable articles is a folding apparatus comprising a shirt-mounting base for mounting a shirt, a plurality of plate-shaped members for folding a part of a shirt, the plate-shaped members being capable of moving relative to the shirt-mounting base from a space below and to the side of the shirt-mounting base to a space below the shirt-mounting base, and a photoelectric sensor for sensing the positions of the sleeves or the like of the shirt (see Japanese Laid-open Patent Application No. 8-215500).
With this shirt-folding apparatus, an operator mounts shirts on the shirt-mounting base so that the sleeves or the like hang down from the shirt-mounting base. When a shirt is mounted on the mounting base, the positions of the sleeves or the like of the shirt are recognized by the photoelectric sensor, the plurality of plate-shaped members are moved relative to the shirt and the shirt-mounting base to a space below the mounting base so as to fold the sleeves of the shirt, and the shirt is folded.